Cecil James Sharp

Sharp, Cecil James, 1859–1924, English musician, best known for his researches in English folk music. In 1911 he founded the English Folk Dance Society. In the United States he collected (1914–18) folk songs in the Appalachian Mts., where he found many songs of English origin. His numerous anthologies include English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachian Mountains (with O.D. Campbell, 1917; 3d ed. by Maud Karpeles, 1960) and American-English Folk Songs (1918). He wrote English Folk Song: Some Conclusions (1907, 4th ed. 1965) and, with A. P. Oppé, The Dance: An Historical Survey of Dancing in Europe (1924).